Lewis K. Billings, Mayor of Provo, Utah

At 1:30 pm on Wednesday, April 27, 2005, Lewis K. Billings, the mayor of Provo, Utah, testified, on behalf of the American Public Power Association (APPA), before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in support of municipal broadband

You can read a copy of his remarks to that body by clicking here.

This appearance was reported today in the newsletter of the United Telecom Council (UTC), the "Telecommunications and Information Technology Association for Utility, Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Companies."

In its newsletter, UTC voiced its support for municipal efforts to provide broadband access to residents, saying:

"…reasons for promoting municipal broadband are many, including the efficiency of using existing infrastructure, the importance of telecommunications services for economic growth and development in areas with a lack of other providers, and the near-unique ability of utilities to meet Presidential goals of ubiquitous broadband by 2007. 'Municipal entry into the telecommunications market directly facilitates business and industry recruitment and retention, enhances economic development, and improves the quality of education and employment opportunities for local citizens,' UTC stated. UTC explained that benefits from municipal broadband run both to consumers and to the utility, with the utility’s benefit coming from increased investment in critical infrastructure communications facilities."

This testimony before a Congressional subcommittee was neither the first nor the only occasion upon which Provo Mayor Billings has undertaken to explain the virtues of municipal broadband.

On September 9, 2004, Mayor Billings spoke about efforts to bring ubiquitous broadband to Provo, and about the obstacles that needed to be overcome there, to "an audience of business and technology leaders," as reported here by a reporter associated with Lafayette Coming Together," a group organizing on behalf of the Lafayette Utilities System's "Fiber for the Future" initiative.

(To read a February 24, 2005, C|Net News.com article about the fight in Lafayette, Louisiana, between the Lafayette Utilities System, which wants to build a fiber optic network to deliver ubiquitous broadband Internet access to the residents and businesses, and the cable company (Cox Communications) and the telco (BellSouth) that don't want it to, click here.)

At the Community Broadband Conference in San Francisco in mid-October, 2004, at the invitation of APPA, the Mayor Billings delivered the keynote speech, entitled "Benefits of a Community Broadband Network.".